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Kankar.

Pottery.

stone.

the quarries of the Khásí Hills in Assam, known as 'Sylhet lime,' and from the Susuniá quarries in Bankura District. Except for occasional beds of kankar, the lower valley of the Ganges is absolutely destitute of stone; nor does the alluvial soil afford good materials for brickmaking or fine pottery. But a European firm has recently established large pottery works at Ráníganj in Bardwán, which employ about 500 hands, and carry out contracts for drainage pipes and stoneware. The Building centre of the peninsula and the hill country generally abound in building-stone of excellent quality, which has been used locally from time immemorial. Among the finest stones may be mentioned the pink marble of Rájputána, of which the historical buildings at Agra were constructed; the trap of the Deccan; the sandstone of the Godávari and the Narbada; and the granite of Southern India. Quarries of slate are scattered through the peninsula, and sometimes worked by Mica and European capital. Mica and talc are also quarried to make ornaments. Among the hills of Orissa and Chutiá Nagpur, household vessels and ornaments are skilfully carved out of an indurated variety of potstone.

Marble.

Slate.

talc.

Precious stones.

at Golconda;

Despite its legendary wealth, which is really due to the accumulations of ages, India cannot be said to be naturally prolific in precious stones. Under the Muhammadan rule, Diamonds, diamonds were a distinct source of State revenue; but at the present day, the search for them, if carried on anywhere in British territory, is too insignificant an occupation to have attracted the notice of Government. The name of Golconda has passed into literature; but that city, once the Musalmán capital of the Deccan, was rather the home of the diamondcutters than the actual source of supply. It is believed that the far-famed diamonds of Golconda actually come from the sandstone formation, which extends across the south-east borders of the Nizam's Dominions into the Madras Districts of Ganjám and Godávari. A few worthless stones are still found in this region. Sambalpur, on the upper channel of the Mahanadi river in the Central Provinces, is another spot once famous for diamonds. In the last century, a British officer was despatched to Sambalpur by Clive to arrange for remittances home by means of Sambalpur diamonds. As late as 1818, a stone is said to have been found here weighing 84 grains and valued at £500. The river valleys of Chutiá Nágpur are also known to have yielded a tribute of diamonds to their Muhammadan conqueror. At the present day, the only place where the search for diamonds is pursued as a regular industry is the

in Sam

balpur ;

Native State of Panna (Punnah) in Bundelkhand. The stones in Bundelkhand. are found by digging down through several strata of gravelly soil, and washing the earth. Even here, however, the pursuit is understood to be unremunerative, and has failed to attract European capital. About other gems very little information is available. The town of Cambay in Guzerat is celebrated for its carving of carnelian, agate, and onyx. The stones come Carnelians. from the neighbourhood of Ratanpur, in the State of Rájpípla. They are dug up by Bhil miners, and subjected to a process of burning before being carved. The most valued colour for carnelians is red, but they are also found white and yellow. Lapis lazuli is found in the mountains of the north, and is freely used in the decoration of temples and tombs.

fisheries.

Inferior pearl fisheries are worked off the coast of Madura Pearl District in the extreme south, and in the Gulf of Cambay; but the great majority of Indian pearls come either from Ceylon (which is also rich in other gems) or from the Persian Gulf. In the year 1700, the Dutch obtained a lease of all the pearl fisheries along the Madura coast, and sublet the right of fishing to native boatmen, of whom 700 are said to have taken licences annually at the rate of 60 écus per boat.

of the

I have now sketched the physical aspects of India, its past history, and its present administration and condition under British Rule. It remains to briefly deal with the topics of scientific interest connected with the country: its material framework or geology; its climatic conditions, or meteorology; its animal and vegetable products; and the health statistics of Scientific its population. Each of these forms the subject of elaborate branches volumes, and the adequate treatment of the entire group would subject. demand a body of scientific coadjutors whose aid I do not possess. But some account of them may be useful for administrative purposes. The following pages are offered not for the instruction of specialists, but to the general reader who wishes to study India in all its various aspects. In previous sections, I have not hesitated to repeat myself, when dealing with several products, such as opium, cotton, and salt, first from the administrative and then from the economic point of view. For I believe that such repetitions are convenient to many who desire a fairly complete view of the subject under each head. In like manner, I shall not hesitate to again repeat myself, in referring to certain productions, such as coal, iron, or forests, in their scientific aspects.

Himálayas.

Gneiss.

Central gneissic

axes.

CHAPTER XXI.

GEOLOGY.1

FOR geological purposes India may be mapped out into the three geographical divisions of-the Himálayan region, the Indo-Gangetic plain, and Peninsular India.

The Himalayan Region.-The geology of this tract is more complex and less fully known than that of the Peninsular area. Until the ground has been carefully gone over by the Geological Survey, many points must remain doubtful; and large areas of the Himalayas (Nepál and Bhután) are still inaccessible to Europeans. The oldest rock of the Himalayas is a gneiss, differing in character from the gneiss of the Peninsula, and from that of Assam and Burma. The Himálayan gneiss is usually white and grey, its felspar orthoclase and albite; it contains much mica and mica schist, and is more uniform in character than the gneiss of the Peninsula. The latter is usually pink, its felspar being orthoclase and oligoclase; it contains little mica schist, but often has quartzite and hornblendic rock. Hornblende occurs in the syenitic gneiss of the Northern Himálayan (or Ladákh) range.

The Central Himálayan region may be described as consisting of two gneissic axes, with a trough or synclinal valley between them, in which fossiliferous beds have been deposited and are now preserved. The gneiss of the southern or main axis (the 'central gneiss' of Dr. Stoliczka) is the oldest; that of the northern or Ladákh axis comes next in age. The gneiss of the Ladakh axis is generally syenitic, or is that variety of the Himalayan gneiss already described as containing hornblende. It is probably an extremely altered condition of ordinary marine sediment. The gneiss of the central axis is the ordinary kind; it is penetrated by granite, which ranges along some of the highest peaks. Between these two gneissic axes occurs the basin-shaped valley, or the Hundes and Zanskar synclinal. In this valley fossiliferous rocks are pre

1 This section is based upon the official Manual of the Geology of India, by Messrs. H. B. Medlicott and W. T. Blanford, 2 vols., Government Press, Calcutta, 1879. Mr. W. Topley, of the English Geological Survey, conducted the preliminary condensation.

served, giving representatives of the Silurian, Carboniferous, Triassic, Jurassic, and Cretaceous formations. All these seem there to have followed each other without important breaks or unconformities; but after the deposition of the Cretaceous rocks of the Himálayan region important changes appear to have taken place in its physical geography. The Nummulitic (Eocene) strata were laid down on the eroded edges of some of the older beds, and in a long trough within the Silurian gneiss of the Ladakh axis.

Himá

On the south of this true Himálayan region there is a band Lower of country known as the Lower Himálaya, in which the beds layas.

are often greatly disturbed, and even completely inverted, over great areas, the old gneiss apparently overlying the sedimentary rocks. This Lower Himálayan region is about 50 miles wide, and consists of irregular ridges, varying from 5000 to 8000 feet in height, and sometimes reaching 12,000 feet. Resting upon the gneiss, but often through inversion apparently underlying it, in the neighbourhood of Simla, is a series of unfossiliferous beds (schists, quartzites, sandstones, shales, limestones, etc.) known in descending order as the Krol, Infra-Krol, Blaini, and Infra-Blaini beds. In the Krol beds is a massive limestone (Krol limestone) probably representing Krol the limestone of the Pir Panjál range, which is most likely of limestone. Carboniferous age.

probably Silurian.

The Blaini and Infra-Blaini beds are

The Lower Himálayan range ends at the Sutlej valley, west Subof which the continuation of the central range is followed Himalayas. immediately by the third or sub-Himálayan range. This occurs almost always on the south of the Lower Himalayas, and is composed of later Tertiary rocks (Siwáliks, etc.), which range parallel with the main chain. Generally the sub-Himálayas consist of two ranges, separated by a broad flat valley (dún or doon'); the southern slope, overlooking the great Indo-Gangetic plain, is usually the steepest. Below Náini Tál

and Dárjíling (Darjeeling), the sub-Himálayan range is wanting; on the Bhután frontier the whole range is occasionally absent, and the great alluvial plain slopes up to the base of the Lower Himálayan region. It is within the sub-Himálayan range that the famous Siwálik beds occur, long known for Siwálik their vast stores of extinct mammalia. Of about the same beds. age are the Manchhar beds of Sind, which also contain a rich mammalian fauna. The Lower Manchhars probably correspond to the Náhan beds, the lowest of the Siwáliks; they rest upon the Gaj beds, which are probably Upper Miocene.

Salt
Range.

Indo-
Gangetic
Plain.

From this it would seem that the lowest Siwáliks are not older than Upper Miocene. The higher Siwálik beds are considered by Mr. W. T. Blandford to be Pliocene, and to this later period he also refers the mammalian beds of Pikermi in Greece. These have a large number of fossils in common with the Siwáliks; but they contain, at their base, a marine band with Pliocene shells. The Manchhar and Siwálik beds are chiefly of fresh-water origin.

The Salt Range in the north-west of the Punjab has, in addition to its economic value, a special geological importance. Representatives of most of the great European formations of Silurian and later epochs are found in it; and throughout the vast length of time represented by these formations there is here no direct evidence of any important break in succession, or unconformity. The lowest beds (salt marl, probably Silurian) and the highest (Siwáliks) are found throughout the range. But the others cannot be traced continuously throughout; some occur well developed in one place, some in another. All the principal fossiliferous beds of the Jurassic, Triassic, and Carboniferous formations are confined to the western part of the range.

The Indo-Gangetic Plain covers an area of about 300,000 square miles, and varies in width from 90 to nearly 300 miles. It rises very gradually from the sea at either end; the lowest point of the watershed between the Punjab rivers and the Ganges is about 924 feet above sea level. This point, by a line measured down the valley, but not following the winding of the river, is about 1050 miles from the mouth of the Ganges and 850 miles from the mouth of the Indus, so that the averIts slope age inclination of the plain, from the central watershed to the sea, averages only about 1 foot per mile. It generally exceeds this near the watershed; but there is here no ridge of high ground between the Indus and the Ganges, and a very trifling change of level would often turn the upper waters of one river into the other. It is not unlikely that such changes have in past time occurred. Towards the sea the slope becomes almost imperceptible.

to the sea.

Its geo

There is no evidence that the Indo-Gangetic plain existed as logical age. such in Pre-Tertiary times. The alluvial deposits made known by the boring at Calcutta, have already been described in Its alluvial sufficient detail.' They prove a gradual depression of the area deposits. through the later Tertiary times. There are peat and forest 1 See ante, pp. 45, 46.

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